Thomson

It’s a heck of a way to run a pre-election campaign. On the eve of an expected election, politicians usually spend their time playing up good news, downplaying the bad, shaking hands and kissing babies.

The Intracoastal Waterway throughout the Fort Lauderdale area helps boaters get around easily

Fort Lauderdale is laced with more than 266 kilometres of navigable canals which is why this Florida town is known as The Venice of America.

It also has more than 100 marinas with 42,000 pleasure craft registered there which also bestows upon it the title of yachting capital of the world.

Barbara Woodcock has crewed aboard international yachts worth tens of millions of dollars that come to Fort Laudeerdale, but these days she has her own command.

She is captain of Riverfront Cruises 1, a public tour boat that carries tourists on a 90-minute cruise amidst the mansions and mega yachts that line Fort Lauderdale’s waterways. She knows all the rumours and scuttlebutt along the canals.

From Capt. Woodcock you’ll learn that most of the crew on board the large yachts never get to meet the owners. They have to earn their way up the ranks to be able to serve drinks and meals to the owners and their onboard guests.

As her tour boat sails past the mansion actor Lee Majors shared with the late Farrah Fawcett, Woodcock explains why Majors had trouble selling the place after their marriage dissolved. “The realtor told him it’s tough to sell a house that has Major-Fawcett problems.”

A groan drifted among the tour boat passengers after that comment, but most of the other information was interesting. Her tour vessel departs from the Las Olas Riverfront Entertainment Complex on the New River every 90 minutes daily, starting at 11 a.m.

The vessel cruises past the mansions currently or once occupied by Rose Kennedy, Charles Bronfman, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Sonny and Cher, Gloria Vanderbilt, Vivian Lee and billionaire Wayne Huizenga who recently sold the Miami Dolphins of the NFL.

There's Dinah Shore's old yellow house that Demi Moore recently rented for $27,000 a month, plus the estates of families who started or own Wells Fargo, Radio Shack, Tim Horton’s and Wendy’s Restaurants. The Alka Seltzer mansion is conveniently located next door to Bronfman’s Seagram’s mansion.

Movie producer/director Michael Mann’s large glass-fronted house is on the tour. It was often featured in Mann’s TV production of Miami Vice. Woodcock tells us the large house has only one bedroom.

On the New River we cruised past the first condominium apartments built in America. In 1964 they sold for $6,000 each. Today, they start at $350,000. La Maison Blanche sits at the intersection of the New River and the Intracoastal Waterway. It looks like the other “white house”. It was built in 1938 by the man who invented the automatic transmission. It has 20,000 square feet, 11 bedrooms, 12 bathrooms, five powder rooms, a six-car garage with two suites above, each with two bedrooms. It was recently on the market for $28.5 million, down from last year's $35 million price tag.

The boat tour includes a visit to Port Everglades, one of the world’s busiest cruise ship harbours. On Sundays as many as a dozen large cruise vessels are loading passengers for Caribbean cruises.

Woodcock's cruise costs $20 for adults and there's a bar and snacks on board. For $12 you can purchase an all-day ticket to hop-on, hop-off a fleet of yellow water taxis that have a dozen regular stops along the canals and the inland waterway.

Their skippers pride themselves on being knowledgeable tourism guides as well as wet bus drivers.

Large yachts cruise up the New River into the heart of Fort Lauderdale where they sail over top of U.S. Highway 1, a major east-coast highway that starts at the Canadian border with Maine and runs 3,218 kilometres south to Key West. A tunnel carries the highway under the river.

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